


Return on Hope

by SallyExactly



Series: And Sweetest In The Gale [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyExactly/pseuds/SallyExactly
Summary: Garcia Flynn no longer believes in miracles. But he still believes in Lucy Preston.CN: blood.





	Return on Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a prompt fill for a charity drive based on the words “Lorynn saved HEA.”

Garcia Flynn stopped believing in miracles the night of August 27th, 2014.

But he had not yet lost faith in Lucy Preston.

So when she came to his room late one night, soft and sure of voice, and told him she thought there was a way to save Lorena and Iris…

He sank slowly onto his bed.

His fingers, he realized distantly, as he rubbed their backs across his lips, were shaking. “How?”

#

He never would have convinced Agent Christopher on his own. But Lucy went to bat for him. He’d done nothing to deserve that, and he knew it.

So, two weeks later, he found himself climbing the Lifeboat stairs.

He stopped short at the top. He’d expected Jiya. She’d made the first trip— “I had you _shot_ ,” he blurted before he could think better of it. “What are you doing?”

Rufus looked up. “I can always count on you to make me feel good about my social skills, man.”

Garcia snorted.

“Lucy asked me,” Rufus said, as if that explained everything. “Besides. I don’t like you, but I’d have to be kind of a misogynistic dickweasel to let your girls suffer for that.”

“ _Dickweasel?_ ”

“Dickferret? Is that better?”

“Boys,” Lucy said, strapping the all-important carrying case into place.

And then they jumped.

They landed near the house, because they knew from rescuing Rufus, they had a time limit. Thank God the effects of crossing your own timeline weren’t cumulative. Rufus stayed with the Lifeboat. Lucy came with Garcia— and he’d fought hard against this part, even been willing to beg _Wyatt_ to take her place, but he couldn’t withstand her arguments any more than Agent Christopher could.

They’d taken precautions. It was August 25 th  . Rittenhouse might have the house under surveillance already, but he and Lucy both had their faces covered. But— but _if_ —

He’d been given one chance. He couldn’t fuck it up.

The pressure in his head was already building as he stepped up to Iris’s window. And then—

The first sight of her in four years nearly sent him to his knees. He grabbed the window ledge to stay upright, as gratitude and— and anger, and terror, and love—

“Flynn, we have to keep moving,” Lucy whispered, and he was so grateful she was here.

He’d installed the windows; it was the work of a moment to defeat the safety features. He thought bitterly of how easy it must have been for Rittenhouse.

And then they were inside and he’d peeled off his mask and was crouching beside Iris’s bed, convinced this was a dream. “Iris,” he whispered. “Wake up, dear one.”

She opened her eyes. “Daddy?” she whispered. She looked past him. “Who’s that?”

“This is Lucy. She’s a friend. Iris, I’m sorry, but we need to leave.” He took a deep breath, because the clock would start ticking after his next words. “Can you call Mommy?”

Iris blinked up at him sleepily. “Why don’t you call her?”

… uh. He tried to think past the pressure in his head.

“It’s a game,” Lucy whispered.

“Oh. Okay. Mommy!” Iris called.

He listened tensely to the bed shifting in the other room, because if his younger self came instead—

No. Those were Lorena’s footsteps.

He _had_ to get the first word. “Don’t scream,” he hissed as she appeared in the doorway. He was surprised it came out at all, because seeing her— there—

No. He _would not_ fuck this up just to bask in her presence. “Don’t scream, darling,” he whispered, as her eyes got huge.

“You’re in… the bedroom,” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder.

He shook his head once. “We don’t have much time. Lorena, listen to me.” He crossed the space between them in two steps. “Two days ago, at work, I discovered time travel is real. Two nights from now, a death squad is going to kill you and Iris. We’re here to get you to safety.”

She stared at him dumbly.

“Say something to Iris, or my younger self is going to come in here,” he added.

“Your _younger self?_ ”

He touched the scar on his neck, courtesy of Wyatt Logan’s bullet. She wouldn’t recognize it.

“Another nightmare?” she managed shakily, not taking her eyes off of him. “Oh, poor baby.”

“Good,” he said. “You take Iris and go with Lucy— uh, this is Lucy.”

“Hi,” Lucy said.

“She’ll get you somewhere safe, and I’ll follow as soon as I can. It’s a strange machine, but get in it. _Please_.” He would explain, once they were all there, that _somewhere safe_ was the year 2018. He would explain everything, and then Agent Christopher would help them start a new life, far from Rittenhouse, far from him.

“Garcia—” He could see her mind racing, trying to make sense of all this. She glanced at the case by his knee. “What’s _that?_ ”

“Blood. Yours.”

“ _Wh_ —”

“The people who want you dead would be ruling the world right now if your husband hadn’t fought them.” Lucy’s voice was quiet and steely. “He needs to believe you’re dead.”

Lorena looked from Lucy to him in disbelief. “There’s no way in hell I’ll do that to y— _him_ —”

“ _You have to_ ,” Lucy bit out.

Pain stabbed his skull. At this rate, if his younger self came in— and he would, soon— Garcia wouldn’t have the presence of mind to prevent disaster. He’d get Lorena and Iris out of there by force if necessary, and the signs of a struggle would just make it more realistic, but, oh, it would ruin him to do it.

“Lorena, please. Take Iris and go with Lucy. Now. Please, trust me.” He dropped to his knees, and it had nothing to do with his dizziness. “I’m begging you.”

The way she looked down at him threatened to undo him. “I always trust you,” she whispered, sounding sad. Then she looked searchingly at Lucy, and scooped Iris out of the bedclothes.

He exchanged one sharp look with Lucy— _get them to safety. Yes_ — and cracked open the case as they scrambled out the window. Jiya had doctored blood from the blood bank with DNA from the hair she’d retrieved from Lorena and Iris’s hairbrushes in 2013. There was more here than anyone could survive losing. His younger self, not to mention the police, would be fully convinced Lorena and Iris were dead even when the bodies never turned up.

He left the knife in the middle of the room, with his thumbprint in the blood. Then, hands shaking, he scrawled a sickening message on the wall in “Lorena’s” blood.

His younger self stirred across the hall. Garcia propelled himself through the window, left the rest of the blood in the drag marks Lucy had made, and staggered back to the Lifeboat’s landing site.

It was gone. That meant Lorena and Iris were safe. That meant…

He’d done it.

Even if he died before Rufus came back, _they’d_ done it.

Only jumping four years, Rufus wouldn’t have to recharge. Garcia just… had to hang on… a little longer…

He was on the ground by the time the Lifeboat returned.

“Flynn,” Rufus hissed. “Flynn! … oh, shit.”

“I’m fine,” Flynn ground out, pain spiking behind his eyeballs.

“Yeah, the fetal position, the universal indicator of ‘I’m fine.’”

Flynn’s laugh sounded like falling rocks even to him. “They’re safe,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

… then he pried his eyes open. “They _are_ safe, right?”

“Cool it with the murder eyes. Yeah, they’re safe. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“And the timeline, it’s safe to go back to? We didn’t…” The pain was so bad, it stole his breath. “Change things… too much?”

“It’s _fine_. Seriously, Flynn, get your ass up. I’m not explaining to that woman that you died here.”

Flynn snorted, but staggered to his feet. With Rufus’s help, he careened to the Lifeboat, made it up the steps…

#

He opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling.

“There you are,” a familiar voice said softly.

But the ceiling, and the voice, they didn’t… match…

“You scared the hell out of me,” she added. “Coming back unconscious on the floor of that machine. Good thing your Agent Christopher had a neurologist waiting.”

He turned his head, and saw Lorena.

Lorena.

Why was that surprising?

She smiled at him, and he felt instinctively that everything would be all right, even if…

And then he remembered what he’d done.

 _Everything_ he’d done.

“Lorena,” he breathed, leaning away from her. He wanted to touch her face, make sure she was really here, but didn’t dare soil her with his fingers. “… I’ll, ah. I’ll go.”

“What?”

“I’ve done horrible things,” he whispered. “The man you knew— he’s dead. The years you missed—”

“Lucy told me everything,” she said.

_What?_

He wasn’t sure what to think of that, but apparently he should stop underestimating Lucy Preston’s generosity.

“I don’t know what to say,” Lorena admitted. “Killing President _Lincoln_ , Garcia?”

“I know what to say.” He swung his legs to the floor—

“I wasn’t done.” Her voice was sharp.

He stopped in place, and looked at her.

“If you want to walk away, I can’t stop you.” Her face became shadowed. “If you’ve found someone else… but you should know that’s not what I want.”

He _looked_ at her, already half- sure he was hallucinating, and didn’t know how to convince her that she was being too naive, too loving. It was taking all he had to hold out against her, as everything in him _yearned_ for her. “Lorena, you don’t _know_ ,” he whispered.

“So tell me.”

He winced at that. How could he—

She leaned closer. “Tell us to go and we will, Garcia.” She was so close he could feel her breath on his face. “But until you send us away…” Her hand cupped his face. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Oh, Christ. “Lorena,” he whispered helplessly, plea and denial at the same time. He didn’t have the strength to stop himself reaching for her.

She closed the final distance between them. He swallowed a sob at the gentle devastation of her lips against his. He forgot everything except for having her in his arms again.

Minutes, maybe hours, passed before the door opened. “— wanna see Daddy!”

They pulled apart. Iris bounded into the room like a tornado and threw herself into his lap. “Daddy Daddy Daddy!”

“Iris,” he managed. “Iris, my jumping bean koala bear.”

She giggled, but stared up at him, clearly worried. “Are you okay now?”

He’d felt better. But for Iris, anything, including managing, “I feel great.” He hugged her tightly, feeling her little hands around his neck, smelling the scent of her hair.

God, he was such a fool. By the time he’d told Lucy he’d walk away from them, they’d been dead two years. He’d started to forget the visceral reality of them, as they stuck in his memory like frozen images.

How could he walk away now?

He had no guarantees. Maybe Lorena would come to her senses and leave. Maybe she’d discover he’d just changed too much in four years. Maybe…

He had no guarantees… but he had _hope_.

He looked down at Iris, bouncing happily on his lap, clutching the stuffed bear that he last remembered seeing blood-spattered. He looked at Lorena, watching him with that little satisfied smile at the corner of her mouth that threatened to undo him.

Iris dropped Grumbly Bear and scrambled to the floor to retrieve it. He leaned forward and kissed Lorena gently, sliding his shaking fingers through her hair.

 _I’ll try_ , he tried to tell her. _I’ll stay_ . _You deserve a better man, but I killed him, so I’ll do my damnedest to be who you deserve_.

When he pulled away, Iris scrambled impatiently into his lap again. “You kiss Mommy _all the time_.”

Garcia laughed shakily, and buried his face against Lorena’s hair for a moment, thinking dazedly of— of waking up tomorrow with her still here. Of celebrating her next birthday, _Iris’s_ next birthday, _with them_ and not with enough alcohol to knock him out. Of watching Iris grow, and learn, and— and _live_ …

For the first time in four years, he had hope rewarded.

**Author's Note:**

> It actually is possible to fabricate a DNA sample in blood: <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html>


End file.
